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All Senator Harry Reid wants for Christmas is a massive health care reform bill. Let’s hope he doesn’t get anything from his wish list this year.
The U.S. Senate has been working overtime and on weekends to push through legislation that will increase the government’s role in health care, expand Medicare and do little to control costs in our health care system. In fact, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found that the Senate bill will increase national health care expenditures by $234 billion, or 0.7 percent, over the next decade. That doesn’t sound like the kind of health care reform we need.
There is a lot of talk in our nation’s capitol about job creation. The President held a “jobs” summit last week. It is clear that more needs to be done to create more jobs in the country – but if you think the answer to our economic woes will be solved by folks in Washington, DC, think again.
For all their talk of creating jobs, the Administration and Congress has done little for our small businesses – those who are actually in a position to create jobs. More government spending doesn’t result in more jobs, just look at the so-called stimulus bill that was passed earlier this year.
Small businesses can’t seem to get a break from Washington. The health care bill is moving through Congress and it would impose added costs on our small business owners, mandating that they provide their employees with health care. Legislation to mandate paid sick leave is gaining steam on Capitol Hill. And, now Congress is fast tracking legislation that would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that would further regulate the flow of capital.
Specifically, the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency would assume regulatory responsibilities related to consumer finance now performed by other federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). The role of the federal government in determining what financial products consumers can access would grow.
Congress is at it again, using the excuse of the swine flu to mandate paid sick leave. This time the pig’s nose is under the tent.
Last week the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on a proposal, H.R. 3991, the Emergency Influenza Containment Act. If passed, this bill would require employers with as few as 15 employees to provide five days of paid sick leave per 12 month period to all full or part time workers who are sent home by their employer or directed to stay home by their employer because of contagious illness such as the H1N1 virus. The Senate also held a hearing on the issue.
On November 7 around 11:15 pm when a lot of people were asleep, the House of Representatives passed (by two votes) a massive 2,032 page health care reform bill (HR 3962) that will cost $1.3 trillion, impose new taxes and mandate employers to provide health care coverage. It is the wrong prescription for our economy, for consumers and for businesses of all sizes.
The bill amounts to a federal takeover of our health care system. It creates 111 new boards, bureaucracies, commissions and programs! A few samples include the Health Choices Administration, Council for Emergency Care, National Women’s Health Information Center and the Public Health Investment Fund (a full list of all 111 new bureaucracies can be found below).
There was another way. House Republicans offered some common sense ideas that the National Center for Policy Analysis has been pushing for years – giving our small businesses the ability to cross state lines to purchase health care, providing them access to more affordable health care for their employees. The alternative also works to reduce health care costs by enacting medical liability reform.
The estate tax was debated on Capitol Hill last week and the NCPA had a front row seat. The House Small Business Committee held a hearing “Small Businesses and the Estate Tax: Identifying Reforms to Meet the Needs of Small Firms and Family Farmers” where I testified about the need to eliminate the estate tax because it is:
- ANTI-family- Does not allow parents to pass their hard work and wealth on to their children
- ANTI-farm- Farms are especially vulnerable because they hold vast amounts of land which are subject to the estate tax as they are passed from generation to generation
- ANTI-small business- Hurts small businesses that don’t enjoy the same tax shelters and benefits as large corporations
Small business owners and family farmers have large investments in infrastructure and many don’t have the large capital assets they need to pay the tax, and many times are forced to sell the business just to meet their financial obligations.
Our small businesses are struggling. They are struggling to keep their doors open, their employees paid and access to capital flowing. They don’t need any more taxes – not now and not when they die. What do you think?
On October 21, the President announced new measures that he claims will be part of an ongoing effort to help small businesses access credit and create jobs. At the heart of the proposal is to have the government make more loans available to our small businesses.
The three main components include: take further steps to provide small businesses with access to credit by supporting community bank lending through the Financial Stability Plan; seek legislation to increase maximum SBA loan sizes to allow more businesses to access the credit they need; and convening a Treasury-SBA Small Business Lending Conference to work with regulators, lenders and Congress to ensure credit is available to small business. Do we really need more conversations on the issue? Let’s get something done.
This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 768, expressing support for the designation of the month of October as “National Work and Family Month.” It is a simple resolution that does a few good things:
- Recognizes the importance of balancing work and family to job productivity and healthy families;
- Recognizes that an important job characteristic is a work schedule that allows employees to spend time with families;
- Supports the goals and ideals of `National Work and Family Month’, and urges public officials, employers, employees, and the general public to work together to achieve more balance between work and family; and
- Requests that the President issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe `National Work and Family Month’ with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
Nearly everyone understands that our work force is dramatically different than it was decades ago. The findings included in the House Resolution also make the point that “85 percent of United States wage and salaried workers have immediate, day-to-day family responsibilities outside their jobs and job flexibility allows parents to be more involved in their children’s lives.”
Unfortunately House Resolutions have little teeth – they are good talking points and certainly help to bring attention to important issues. But Congress needs to take this resolution one step further and actually support and pass policies that back up these ideas, without imposing new mandates on our businesses.
For one, we need more flexible work arrangements – as the Resolution suggests. Many families struggle to balance work and family, making sure they have enough time off to care for a sick child or attend a soccer game. We need to give private sector hourly employees the option to take time off in lieu of overtime wages, a benefit that our federal government employees have enjoyed for three decades.
Working families, men and women, will continue to re-shape and re-define our workforce. We need to make sure that our laws can keep up with the changes. What do you think?
There’s good news on the economic front, according to the Women Presidents’ Organization’s annual survey. The survey reveals that 67% of companies have increased or maintained employee salaries during this recession. Results from the surveyed membership (membership is women driven) indicate 55% of women presidents and CEOs of multi-million dollar companies have maintained or grown their employee base. Despite the economic downturn, 82% of these CEOs and presidents are optimistic about their company’s performance for 2010.
This year has produced some compelling numbers in financial performance:
- 31% of companies have grown and 21% are stable and have neutral performance.
- 54% have made their business environmental friendly.
- 35% are interested in making their business environmental friendly.
There is a new Fortune 500 company in Washington, DC and it is called the federal government.
October 3rd marked the one-year anniversary of the largest government bailout in U.S. history. The passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) gave our government (and taxpayers) a majority ownership stake in most of our financial services companies. This is one anniversary we shouldn’t be excited to celebrate.
In the year since the TARP was launched, things have gone from bad to worse. In the last nine months we have watched as the federal government took over General Motors; passed a “stimulus” bill that did little to stimulate small business or our economy; transformed itself into a used car salesman with the Cash for Clunkers program; and it is now working around the clock to take over our health care system.
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